Reds sign Mark Prior

[Vottomatic]

At age 24, Nolan Ryan threw 152 innings. At age 25, Ryan threw 284 innings. At age 26, he threw 326, and at 27, 332. He went on to pitch to age 46, never missing a season, while his second lowest innings output was 149 in 1981 when he had a 1.69 e.r.a for the Astros. His final season he only threw 66 innings, while tearing a ligament in his elbow during a game.

It's all hit or miss, luck or bad luck, in the DNA and a guys physical makeup or maybe a flaw in his delivery. Plenty of guys throw tons of innings while never having any problems and others are injury prone. That's just the way it is.

As for signing Prior, it's a no-lose situation. If he starts at Louisville, and has success, he could be a valuable trading chip or add needed depth if the major league rotation suddenly goes down with a rash of injuries.

[dougdirt]

When the Cubs were something like 6 outs from the World Series in 2003 and the wheels to the Cubs mojo wagon suddenly came off somebody had to be the scapegoat.... the fan in left field.....Dusty Baker...... That's all that was talked about in the Chicago media for 2 or 3 years. I was living there at the time so I know the Chicago media can be relentless. After that playoff collapse, Baker was second guessed and scrutinized for every managerial decision he made during his remaining tenure as Cubs manager. That includes everything from how he used Prior and Wood to handling giant egos like Sosa and Zambrano.
In other words, it's my humble opinion that all the talk of Baker overworking pitchers and why it is still talked about today is product of two things: the playoff collapse in 2003 and negative culture surrounding a perennial losing ball club that's never won anything. Do you think this would still be talked about some 10 years later in such negative light if the Cubs had gone on to win the World Series in 2003?

Yes, I do. Mark Prior was a gem in the game and he still would have fallen by the wayside. People would have gone back and looked at why.

Atomicdumpling is right though, they may not have known better at the time. But it still happened. And there were plenty of times, with good leads, to give him rest down the stretch.

Bringing up Nolan Ryan does nothing for the conversation. He was brought up in the
days before pitch counts existed for little leaguers, highschoolers, college pitchers and minor leaguers. The guys who couldn't handle the workloads were already weeded out by the time they reached the Majors.

[edabbs44]

It's a shame that the world started to get smarter about certain areas of the game during a time where things were much different than they are today or were before due to PED usage. It is very difficult to say much about that era, especially when it involves medical issues.

[Vottomatic]

Bringing up Nolan Ryan does nothing for the conversation. He was brought up in the
days before pitch counts existed for little leaguers, highschoolers, college pitchers and minor leaguers. The guys who couldn't handle the workloads were already weeded out by the time they reached the Majors.

LOL. And pitch counts solve everything. (sarcasm)

You missed my point.

It's the luck of the draw.

[westofyou]

The guys who couldn't handle the workloads were already weeded out by the time they reached the Majors.

Jim Bouton, Steve Busby, Steve Barber , Joe Coleman all blew their arms out shouldering that load early on in MLB.

Look guys have been blowing their arms out at each age group in every workload scenario since the mound was a 6 foot box and the plate was 45 feet away. It's inevitable in most cases. The blame lies on the existing culture of the game more than on any individual who was connected to the pitcher when he threw the ball.

Fact is even today in the magical world of we now know what can hurt you guys are going to get hurt and guys are going to drop off the map and guys outside of that realm are going to point fingers and try and find out why something happened.

Nature of the beast, no one knows everything, no one has the magic answer to the age old question "How can I save my arm" folks can just try stuff and do the best they can and limit stress and impact on the elbow and shoulders of their investments. One thing is for sure the more expensive players get the more kid gloves the game will use to protect them.

Back in the day it wasn't as bottom line as it is today, teams don't want to eat contracts when guys get beat up older (see Chris Carpenters current situation) and teams don't want blow guys out when they are cheap.

[Slyder]

Had the team not melted down following the Bartman Ball, and went on to win the WS, nobody in chicagoland would give 2 cruds about how much Prior was used by Dusty.

Apparently Dusty didn't think the Reds front office was mocking Cub fans enough, hence asking them to sign Prior to a minor league deal.

I like Prior on an MLC and stashed at AAA, you can never have too much pitching.

I give Dusty credit, he hasn't been near as bad with young pitchers than I thought he'd be or had been with SF and Chicago. In the grand scheme of things the Cubs as a whole franchise let them down and it was the pressure from the fans (I think) that started the snowball and ownership kept applying pressure.

A couple of my favorite Cubs Songs in honor of this thread.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBHxkyY6m2k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quKraecWnTs

[Always Red]

Before he injured himself, Prior's mechanics were thought to be nearly flawless, effortless, efficient. Google some stuff from around that time; it's easy to find.

There's a lot of accepted common wisdom about pitching these days that didn't exist in 2003. And it's being applied retrospectively in this thread to Prior's case. I think it's easy to see now that Prior was "overworked", but it was not uncommon in those days and prior to then for even more innings to be put on young shoulders and arms. When they got hurt, and they all did (and do, as throwing a baseball overhand is an unnatural, violent act) then the next guy stepped in. The "Verducci Effect" (which might not even exist) wasn't around 10 years ago, and there have always been guys "immune" to it's effects- Lincecum, Jurrjens and Kershaw.

There's not an MLB pitcher around who hasn't been hurt. Today there is far more diagnosis, surgery, and rehab than ever before. There is also more money at stake, and more money invested in pitchers, so they get coddled more and thrown away less often. Back in the day, there was no surgical fix for most pitching injuries- you learned to really pitch, or you went on to your life's work. Or, your effort and desire were questioned, and catchers made fun of you by catching your best fastball with their bare hand.

[Raisor]

Haven't read through the whole thread.

Here's why pitching counts are so important in today's game:

Free Agency.

Players earn way more money in both real dollars and as a percentage of revenue than ever before. They are a true investment for the owners. Can you really blame a team, for example in the Steven Strasburg example, for protecting their investment?

We are talking about huge investments. On both sides. Players have the ability to make community changing amounts of money. Owners have the ability to make world changing amounts of money. Letting young pitchers throw 150-200 pitches a game, like in the old days, is too big a risk. Especially if you have a bullpen like the Reds did last year (as an example).

[Joseph]

Has baseball really changed that much in 10 years? To read this thread you'd think it was the stone ages only a decade ago.

[dougdirt]

LOL. And pitch counts solve everything. (sarcasm)

You missed my point.

It's the luck of the draw.

They don't solve everything, but if you don't believe they are keeping guys healthier, especially when it comes to kids 10-20, you are kidding yourself.

In turn, it means that when guys are now 20-25, they don't have nearly the same kind of arm stamina or even muscle endurance that guys who were 20-25 used to have who grew up throwing a lot more and were able to make it through that time period healthy.

[westofyou]

Has baseball really changed that much in 10 years? To read this thread you'd think it was the stone ages only a decade ago.

The money aspect has changed, thus the tail (players health) is wagging the dog (teams eye on investments).

Growing up in the day of 300 IP starters all we heard about ICE... ICE, soreness... ICE.... WHIRLPOOL...ICE when it came to pitching.

Now it's PITCH COUNTS, METRICS... DR JAMES ANDREWS.

Take the money out of the game and we'd be back to ICE.

[Roy Tucker]

Seems that modern day society (of which baseball is a subset of) wants guarantees and absolutes. We see a talented arm coming up and we want to know the magic formula that will guarantee that this pitcher will go on to fame and glory. If it doesn't happen, we want to attach blame and guilt to someone who failed to do the things that would have prevented the tragedy of a young man failing to earn millions.

The problem is, the real world just doesn't have those kinds of guarantees. Oh sure, we can scientifically and statistically and bioscience-ly and sabermetrically analyze the situation to death to come up the best special sauce that man can provide. But, in the end, it's a random universe and random events happen, and no matter what you do, there are no sure things in life beside death and taxes.

[Raisor]

Roy,

That's true, but that doesn't mean you don't try to minimize risk.

When millions of dollars are on the line, you play the odds.

[Roy Tucker]

Roy,

That's true, but that doesn't mean you don't try to minimize risk.

When millions of dollars are on the line, you play the odds.

Heavens, yes. Do everything you can and minimize risk. One of my mantras is take care of everything in your control because a lot happens out of it. Try to align all the molecules and atoms as best as you can because quarks and neutrinos and gaussian storms will knock them out of whack, sure as shootin'.

But sometimes the discussion starts to center around absolutes and blame and, if there is one thing in the world that isn't an absolute, it's a baseball pitcher's arm.

Let the discussion resume. I ramble.

[reds44]

Is jumping from 167 to 211 really that big of a jump? Was Dusty just supposed to not pitch Prior in the playoffs? Wouldn't that have been an organizational decision rather than a Dusty decision?